Under-fire England coach Chris Silverwood will be unable to travel with his charges to Sydney for the fourth Ashes Test, as yet more COVID-19 cases continue to rock the tourists’ camp.

The England Cricket Board confirmed on Thursday morning that their list of cases had risen to seven, with a fourth member of their family group testing positive. Three support staff members have also contracted the virus.

According to the Herald Sun, Silverwood has been joined in isolation in Melbourne by fast bowling coach Jon Lewis, strength and conditioning head Darren Veness and spin coach Jeetan Patel.

The news means England’s under-pressure bowling group will need to prepare for the New Year’s Test without their frontline coaches.

“As a result of the positive test, England men’s head coach Chris Silverwood will have to isolate for 10 days, along with his family, in Melbourne and will miss the fourth Ashes Test,” the ECB said in a statement.

“A fourth successive round of PCR tests will be administered today.”

It’s another hammer blow to what might be the most miserable tour of Australia in England’s cricket history.

The visitors have been thumped in three consecutive Tests to surrender the Ashes in little over 11 days of play, with their fragile batting line-up ruthlessly picked apart by the home side’s bowling attack.

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Silverwood, who is England’s sole touring selector, will be forced to fulfil his duties remotely in Melbourne. It is believed both teams will now have to be tested for COVID-19 every day for the remainder of the series.

Despite the news, Cricket Australia remain adamant the fourth and fifth Tests of the series will be played at their original venues, the SCG and Tasmania’s Blundstone Arena.

The England camp’s COVID-19 cases threatened to derail the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne, but as yet, no player has tested positive.

The two teams will take a chartered flight to Sydney on Friday and share a private hotel in the lead-in to the Test, which starts next week, with CA sparing no expense to ensure the series is completed.

Test great calls for Swepson to finally be given his chance

Calls for leg-spinner and long-term Nathan Lyon understudy Mitchell Swepson to receive a baggy green in Sydney have grown louder in recent days, following Scott Boland’s incredible Boxing Day debut having been named as an ‘MCG specialist’.

Australia’s upcoming tour to Pakistan, and looming subcontinent assignments against Sri Lanka and India, also help Swepson’s case to be blooded heading into those series.

Former Australian captain Mark Taylor has led the calls for the Queenslander to debut, telling Wide World of Sports the form of Cameron Green as a fast bowling all-rounder makes playing two spinners a viable option.

“Australia has got the essence of a good side going forward. They need to find a suitable replacement in years to come for Nathan Lyon,” Taylor said.

“Maybe that is Mitch Swepson; maybe they even give Swepson the next Test match.

“You never like to see Test matches used as trial games, but it will be interesting to see if Mitch Swepson comes into consideration for Australia for the next Test.

“Will they consider maybe playing two seamers, Cameron Green, Lyon, and Swepson? That might be something depending on the pitch at the SCG.”

Muddying the waters is Josh Hazlewood’s looming return from a side strain that has kept him out since the first Test. Chief selector George Bailey said on Thursday the decision to include the star fast bowler at his home ground of the SCG would largely be left up to him.

“I’ve got pretty good faith in ‘Hoff’ knowing his own body and trusting his own body,” he said.

“He’ll build up as he would before any Test; I think he’s having another bowl today.

“He’ll obviously talk a lot with Andrew McDonald and [team physiotherapist] David Beakley and the team to see how he’s going, but I’ve got pretty good faith that if Hoff’s confident and he says he’s right to go, I think we back him in. He’s earned that trust.”

Australia have already selected six fast bowlers for the series, having used that many across the previous four summers combined. However, the hosts have handled injury blows and Pat Cummins’ infamous COVID-enforced withdrawal from the Adelaide Test excellently, with Boland’s Melbourne heroics the most obvious example.

However, Bailey believes talk of a ‘rotation policy’ is misguided, saying Australia’s policy remains to pick the best available bowlers, fitness depending.

“No one’s ever resting; particularly with fast bowlers, there’s no such thing as a rest,” he said.

“If they’re not playing they’re working their backsides off to get their physical conditioning right. We need to stop using that word.

“There’s a hell of a lot of cricket across a range of formats and that’s a challenge. Talk about good headaches, the fact that we have Pat, Josh and Mitch as three premier world-class fast bowlers across all three formats is a great problem, a great credit to how highly skilled they are.”

After the second Test in Adelaide went to the final session on day five, the Aussies opted to treat niggling injuries to Jhye Richardson and Michael Neser with caution. However, Bailey believes the speed at which the Boxing Day Test wrapped up, needing just over two days to be completed, will prompt different thinking around who can play in Sydney.

“Our quicks in particular, not having as heavy a workload as they had in Adelaide and a couple of extra days off, that will work in their favour,” he said.

Despite the Ashes having already been secured, Bailey is adamant neither players nor selectors will be resting on their laurels, with the carrot of a 5-0 whitewash keeping everyone focussed.

“They put a hell of a lot of pride into each and every Test, and I don’t think the series being wrapped up will take away from that,” Bailey said.

“For ‘Hoff’ in particular, the opportunity to play a Test match, in his home state as well… there’s always plenty to play for.”

‘Staggeringly off the mark’: England great calls for Root’s head

England Test legend and the always outspoken Geoff Boycott has led the calls for embattled England captain Joe Root to step down from the role, after the humiliation they have endured across the first three Tests.

Writing in The Telegraph, Boycott, whose dour but successful crease occupation throughout a 108-Test career would come in handy for England’s currently all at sea batting group, has become the latest to target Root in particular, despite the skipper enjoying a dominant 2021 despite his team’s woes.

“Ian Chappell was right when he recently said that Joe is a super batsman but a poor captain,” Boycott wrote.

“Now Australia are 3-0 up and the Ashes have gone, will Root please stop saying Australia are not much better than us?

“I don’t mind him living in cuckoo land but stop trying to kid us. If he really believes what he says then maybe it is time he gave up the captaincy of the England cricket team.”

Boycott went on to say Root’s captaincy ‘lacks imagination’; the 81-year old was particularly critical of England’s use of their bowlers throughout the series, which he describes as being ‘staggeringly off the mark’.

“Leaving out Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad – England’s best and most experienced seamers – at the Gabba made no sense. Over 1,100 Test-match wickets between them.” Boycott wrote.

“At their age if they don’t play Test matches why take them to Australia? And by pure good fortune the Brisbane pitch was seamer friendly which is their forte.

“David Warner must have been so apprehensive of having to face Stuart Broad bowling at him from around the wicket because in 2019, in England, Stuart made his life a nightmare. He had no idea where his off stump was and kept getting out cheaply.

“Warner is a key batsman and it was crucial to see if Stuart could get him cheaply again. If he did get him out quickly the psychological damage to Warner and Australia would have been immense.”

Root is clearly England’s leading run-scorer for both the series and the calendar year, with his tally of 1708 runs at an average of 61 nearly 1200 better than the next-best Rory Burns. Embarrassingly, extras has been their third-highest scorer for 2021, with 412.

Despite that, his captaincy has come under fire throughout this series, with former Australian skipper Ricky Ponting famously taking Root to task during the second Test in Adelaide, for refusing to ensure his bowlers followed team directives.

“If you can’t influence your bowlers on what length to bowl, what are you doing on the field?” Ponting told cricket.com.au… and Boycott agrees wholeheartedly.

“Ricky went on to ask why Joe didn’t give them a rollicking and insist they pitch it up or otherwise take them off? What is the point of having the stripes of authority if you don’t use them? Can you imagine Joe swearing or telling off a player? I can’t,” he said.

“It’s every cricketer’s dream to captain England and Joe has had 59 Test matches to mould and stamp his authority on this set of players. He has had 13 Tests against Australia with only two wins and nine losses.

“Nobody would want to give up the captaincy, but it is not about Joe – it is about getting guys to perform better.”

England appear to lack readymade replacements for Root as captain, with vice-captain and wicketkeeper Jos Buttler’s Test career in jeopardy after a woeful tour with bat and gloves, and Ben Stokes still returning to top form after a prolonged stint away from the game due to injury and mental health concerns.

Nevertheless, Boycott says someone else must be given the chance to do what Root seemingly can’t, and inspire the team to play above themselves.

“We all love Joe. It is impossible not to like him, but before the squad left the UK Joe said players and captains are defined by Ashes series, particularly in Australia,” Boycott wrote.

“So far this series we have been dreadful and if Joe believes what he has been saying then it is time for someone else to be given the opportunity to try and galvanise the players.

“Captains accept the accolades when their team wins so they have to accept some blame or criticism when they lose. And let’s be honest – we haven’t just lost, we have been smashed.”

Warner eyes Ashes redemption as Test swansong

Despite an excellent series thus far, David Warner is yet to fully bury the ghosts from his nightmare 2019 tour of England.

The opener averaged a record-low 9.50 from his five Ashes Tests that series, famously taken to the cleaners by Stuart Broad in difficult batting conditions.

Having returned to his brilliant best ever since, with his feats including a triple-century against Pakistan two summers ago and a Player of the Tournament performance in Australia’s T20 World Cup victory in November, 35-year old Warner wants the chance to make amends.

Speaking to media following Australia’s victory at the MCG, the left-hander admitted he still has a number of goals to tick off before calling it quits.

“Winning the Ashes here was a big one,” Warner said.

“We still haven’t beaten India in India, that would be nice to do. England away, we had a drawn series, if I manage to get that chance and opportunity I might think about going back.”

Warner would be nearly 37 should he make it to the next tour of England in 2023. However, he has pointed to rival veteran Jimmy Anderson – who continued to defy Father Time with a four-wicket haul at the MCG – as proof that age is just a number. Like Anderson, Warner also believes his game is only getting better.

“James Anderson sets the benchmark for older guys these days. We look up to him getting on in our days,” he said.

“The first two Tests I actually looked like a proper batsman, almost like I played my career the other way.

“I had to knuckle down and respect the bowling, the line and lengths they were bowling. The hundred eluded me [in Adelaide]. I started at the World Cup, moving on into the Ashes and hopefully [can continue] for the next 12 months.”

Warner also admitted having nemesis Broad feature in only one Test thus far this series has been an unexpected, but welcomed, boon.

“I can’t worry what they’re doing, but from our perspective I think it’s great he is not playing,” he said.